


Portraiture

by jeeno2



Series: Short Stories From the Vortex [10]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Mild Sexual Content, Porn Watching, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-15 04:44:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5771782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeeno2/pseuds/jeeno2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Rose first proposed it – over breakfast one morning, of all things – the Doctor was properly horrified.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Portraiture

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my darling mountaingirlheidi, who prompted me with: "Ten x Rose, Paint Me." Also inspired by the timepetalsprompts prompt: "Ten x Rose, angst, 'I'm so sorry.'"

When Rose first proposed it – over breakfast one morning, of all things  – the Doctor was properly horrified.

“You want to what?!” he squeaked.  His eyes, which just a moment ago had been perfectly well-positioned in his head, felt about to pop out of their sockets.  His collar was suddenly uncomfortably tight around his neck and he could feel the tips of his ears going red.

Rose, however, seemed completely unperturbed.  A bit amused, perhaps, at his reaction to her outrageous suggestion – but otherwise as calm as if they’d just been discussing the weather.

Which, in fact they had been, up until fifteen seconds ago, when the entire universe began spinning on its axis with just a handful of words from Rose Tyler.

“You heard me,” she said, smiling.  She quirked an eyebrow at him.  “No need to get upset, Doctor.  Just thought it might be fun is all.”

“ _Fun_?”  He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

But she let the subject drop and went back to eating her pancakes.

* * *

 

Rose didn’t bring it up again the rest of the day.  

She accompanied him to the Galaxia constellation, as per their earlier plans, to help him haggle for flaggaroot.  The TARDIS’ pantry was running low on the herb and the Doctor and Rose both loved a few sprigs of it in their morning tea.  And Galaxia grew the finest flaggaroot this side of the Medusa Cascade.

Unfortunately, the Doctor landed the TARDIS right in the middle of the Fargone era, a time during which flaggaroot was apparently both exceedingly popular and uncommonly rare.  The vendor wanted an appalling sum for the small quantity he was selling.  Even though the psychic paper could easily fill in for all the currency he could ever need the Doctor was unwilling to go along with the ruse purely on principle.

As they walked back to the TARDIS hand in hand, flaggaroot-less and frustrated, the Doctor’s mind wandered back to what Rose had suggested this morning.  

If she was still thinking about what she’d said, or about his reaction to what she’d said, she showed no sign of it.  She wasn’t shooting him furtive glances, or smirking, or looking uneasy.  On the contrary: she looked easy, breezy, beautiful, as that old Earth advert went.

But he’d never been more flustered.

* * *

 

Upon reaching the TARDIS Rose suggested they lie down together for a kip, and he agreed easily.  Haggling on Gallaxia always exhausted him.

But as she rested her head on his shoulder, her fingers splayed across his chest, the Doctor suddenly couldn’t get her earlier suggestion out of his head.

He swallowed thickly, suddenly wide awake, as she dropped off to sleep.

* * *

 

He finally worked up the courage to bring it up again much later, when they were tangled up in his bed together, her head resting comfortably on his bare chest.  

“Can I ask you something?”

Rose – who had been about to fall asleep – started fully awake at his question.  “’Course,” she yawned.  “What is it?”

“Erm.  Well.  That… thing you mentioned earlier…”

The Doctor trailed off, hoping Rose would know what he was talking about.  That she’d take pity on him by finishing his sentence.  When she remained silent the Doctor closed his eyes, knowing he would have no such luck.

“What thing?” she asked quietly.

“You know,” the Doctor said, reaching up to tug on his ear.  “What you… errm.  Said.  Over breakfast today.”  He could tell he was starting to blush, something he never did.

Recognition suddenly dawned clear as a bell on her face.  “Ah.”

“Right.”

She gave him a small smile.  “Well, what about it, Doctor?”

The Doctor took a deep breath and let it out, very slowly.  

“I suppose I just don’t understand why it is you want to… um.  That is to say, I really don’t see why you think we should… well.  Watch.  You know.  Other people…. having sex.  On the, err.  On the telly.”  He didn’t think he’d ever been more embarrassed in any of his lives than he was in this moment.  “Am I not… um… is this not enough?”  He moved his hands meaningfully, hoping his voice wasn’t belying his distress.  

Rose rolled over a bit and took his face in her hands.  She pressed a gentle kiss to his lips.

“Doctor.  Look at me.”

He did.

“I love you.  You know that, don’t you?”

He nodded.

“I just thought it would be… I dunno.  Something different, yeah?  You wouldn’t be open to even trying it?  Not even once?” She kissed him again.  “It could be fun.  Or funny, even.  Maybe we could get, I dunno.  Ideas from it, or something.”

The Doctor’s jaw dropped open in shock.

“Ideas?”

He was thunderstruck.  What he and Rose did together was fantastic.  Brilliant.  The best thing he’d experienced in more than nine hundred years.  It had never occurred to him that there was room for improvement.  That they were even in need of ideas.

“We don’t have to, Doctor,” Rose assured him.  She snuggled against his side and wrapped her arms around him.  “Not if you don’t want to.”

A few minutes later she was sound asleep.

* * *

 

In the end, though, he agreed to it.

There were extensive negotiations over a long period of days leading up to it, of course.  She finally agreed to let him draw her portrait – something he’d been wanting to do for ages, and something that, until now, she’d been reluctant to allow.  

She also promised that the next time he wanted to stop for parts she would agree to it – no matter where they were or what else they might happen to be doing.

“And I swear, Doctor.  If it’s upsetting to you, or you aren’t into it, or if you want to stop for any reason at all, that’s good enough for me.”  She said all of this to him as she sat astride him in the library, whatever it was they’d happened to be watching on the telly forgotten as she ground down on him slowly, in that agonizingly delicious way of hers that made him forget his own name.

“All right,” he’d said, after, her face pressed into his neck, his arms wrapped round her shoulders.  “If you want to try it I guess that’s fine.”

He could feel her smile against his throat, his skin damp with sweat.

* * *

 

In the years since he lost her, the Doctor has thought back on that horrible movie countless times.

Not because he enjoyed it, per se.  He didn’t, just as he knew he wouldn’t.  It had a frankly quite alarming number of naked people in it, most of whom were never shown on camera above the neck.  There was no dialogue, per se.  Just a lot of terribly fake moaning that he knew was intended to titillate but which, in the end, just made both of them laugh.

It made them laugh very hard, in fact.  Before the “actress” reached her first climax they were both doubled up with it, hands clutching their sides and lungs gasping for air.  

Rose shut the film off, apologizing for having suggested watching it in the first place, still laughing, her eyes dancing with mirth and mischief.

Later that night she kept her end of the bargain, posing for him by candlelight under a sky full of stars.

* * *

 

_The Doctor unlocks the door to the room in the back that the TARDIS only lets him see on nights like tonight, when he’s feeling particularly desperate and unbalanced._

_It’s not good for him, he knows, to keep the portrait on board.  But he can’t part with it, either.  He just can’t._ _And today has been a horrible day.  The TARDIS allows him into the half-hidden room without a fight._

_Rose Tyler is an elderly woman now.  He knows she is.  Or at least, he desperately hopes she is.  Rose deserves a long life, full of the laughter and the years he was unable to give her.  But in the portrait that still hangs on the wall in this old room – the portrait she agreed to as part of their silly little arrangement – she’s perennially young and full of life, the bloom in her private smile something that will remain with him the rest of his days._

_“I love you,” he says to the empty room for the thousandth time, tears in his eyes, fingers tracing the outline of her smile.  “And oh, I’m so sorry I never told you.”_


End file.
